Mr. Deggesty’s comments on the B&O PA thread led me to do some searching to find some information these apparently rare Southern PA units. These are for you, Mr. Deggesty:
Well you have pictures of half SOU RR’s roster. ( 6900 - 6905 sub lettered NO&NE ) When SOU bought the PAs ( with ATS) it assigned them to Bristol - Memphis. ( Tennessean #45 & 46 ). It normally took 4 locos and they were rotated off at Chattanooga for forwarding to <> the Alco servicing facility at Pegram shop in Atlanta.
They replaced F units on that run when the PAs became operational. The F unints replaced Alco DL-109s that were on the run. For a while during a coal strike the -109s ran thru on the N&W to Lynchburgh but unknown if they continued to WASH.
When N&W made Bristol -Radford all diesel N&W leased all SOU equipment to run thru on N&W Bristol - Lynchburgh. At that time SOU removed the PAs from service and ran almost all E units on the N&W run thrus.
The Alcos were then sent to Peagram and as far as is known they remained parked there never to turn a revenue mile again. Retirement and scrapping date is unknown. Once scrapped 6 E uits were assigned 6900 - 6905 and sublettered NO&NE like their following numbers. One of those numbers also had added an extra steam loco whistle. Sometime before and after Amtrak day SOU only kept 16 Es 6900 - 6915 almost exclusive for the Southern Crescent. It used 4 on each train until SOU joined Amtrak. Since the SOU Crescent only operated 3 days a week 12 locos were enough and were almost always changed both directions in ATL to go to Peagram for servicing.
Other passenger service including extra Crescent sections were operated with various F units however extra Crescent sections might be a mixture of Es & Fs robbed Es from first sections of Crescent.
.
That paint scheme looks like it was designed for the PA’s. [Y]
Possibly, but I think it originated with the EMD E and F units Southern purchased, and then in turn was applied to the PA’s.
No matter, it was a classy paint scheme any way you look at it!
As a matter of fact, most of those original diesel paint schemes were very well thought out. I was amazed how well they worked on the modern diesels Norfolk-Southern repainted as “Heritage” units. Truly a work of design genius.
As a touch of irony, the paint jobs on the Southern and Erie heritage units (both SD70ACe’s) were patterned after the paint diagrams on PA’s.
Remember the Alco DL109’s preceeded the PA’s.
Save
The paint scheme on the DL109/DL110’s was probably derived from the paint scheme on the E6A/B’s, which came from EMD’s Styling Department.
The PA’s wore it best! [:D]
Funny, I thought it came from Otto Kuhler (and part of the design was the color reversal on the B units, which I never particularly cared for).
RME,
The paint schemes of most of the major American Railroads in the early diesel era were all very impressive designs. I think the cab units of General Motors, the “E” and the “F” as well as the American Locomotive Company - aka ALCO “PA” passenger unit and “FA” freight unit all lent themselves to impressive styling efforts.
Was any ever more famous than the Santa Fe Railroad passenger “War Bonnet” in red, yellow and silver Native American head dress? It will live well beyond the 20th Century!
The Alco PA and FA were very high horsepower units compared to the General Motors F and E. I believe they were diesel 2-stroke engines. The sound they made was more of a low speed “chugging” that can be believed.
I heard the famous Santa Fe PA’s pulling passenger up the Raton Pass in New Mexico in 1967. Driving in a car next to the train running on the westbound main line we came upon the engines and the “loud chugging” of the diesels - it quite surprised me - was just unbelievable compared to the usual smooth sound of the GM “E” and “F” diesels.
I also heard a pair of New York Central Alco FA units pulling freight near Toledo, Ohio. I was riding in the baggage car of a Grand Trunk Railroad steam trip pulled by Canadian National 4-8-4 CN 6218 “northern” back in 1968. I believe the trip ran to Toledo, Ohio and back. At any rate the steamer overtook the New York Central freight going north back to Detroit. It was the same sound those 2-stroke diesels all made. In this case the FA was not all that an impressive engine when I heard it - it looked “for all the world” like it wouldn’t pull the “hat off your head.”
In my then yout
How so? PA 1s were 2000 hp; PA 2s 2250. FAs = 1500, later 1600 hp.
E3s through E7s = 2000 hp; E8s = 2250; E9s = 2400. F3s and F7s = 1500; F 9s 1750 hp.
I guess if you look up the dates for the various units and when they were produced if would be obvious that the two companies were in a horsepower war with Alco leading the way in high horsepower development. GM was 4 stroke and Alco was 2-stroke the designs had obvious drawbacks. GM had big daddy warbucks money and was in diesel development from the 1920’s. Alco produced steam locomotives and converted to diesel development late in the game giving GM a huge advantage in the sales, marketing concepts.
It was also unclear at the time that the time honored practice of steam locomotives remaining on railroad property for maybe 40 or 50 years was going to change to an automotive - used car trade in game. GM took back and repowered many units and the whole railroad motive power game was in flux. How could Alco and Baldwin who were steeped in steam locomotive technology compete with a marketing monolith like war wealthy diesel developer General Motors!
Believe you have your strokes reversed - GM/EMD was 2-Stroke and ALCO was 4-Stroke.
Wasn’t until 1930 the GM got into the locomotive, and of course EMD’s success was also related to the War Production Board required Alco, Baldwin and Lima to produce steam during the wat while EMD was allowed to produce and develop diesel locomotives.
BaltACD et al.,
I stand corrected the Alco was the 4-stroke engine and the GM was the 2-stroke. Alco PA was delivered with 2,250 horsepower in 1946 when the GM E unit had 2000 horsepower. General Motors upgraded the E unit to 2,250 horsepower in 1954 well after the Alco was out of production. Both engine designs were externally aspirated with turbo or supercharging. Alco rushed their diesel engine into production without extensive development - the unseen design problems killed the PA locomotive future.
A typical A-B-A lashup of PA power such as I saw on the Santa Fe in 1967 would have added the horsepower unit total to 7,500 horsepower which was over the top of what the large steam locomotives could develop on the Santa Fe which were generally in the 6000 horsepower catagory. Pennsy did develop about 8000 horsepower with the “duplex drive” Q2 design. Its not hard to see how merely adding diesel units could develop all the power a railroad could need. Costs of multiple units also added up so the percieved efficiencies were not always apparent.
General Motors was unbelievably aggressive in its post war dieselization advocacy program. They ran numerous advertisements characterizing steam locomotives as ancient technology.
The story that Electromotive officials met with the GM board and laid out a plan to revolutionize the rail transportation industry and suplant existing locomotive manufacture in America is entirely true.
The “E” and “F” cab unit products from GM were remarkably well developed and many railroads that were committed to steam railroading just could not overlook the cost reductions and performance the GM Electro Motive products offered. Oil was selling at a mere $5 per barrel.
Pennsylvania Railroad got several diesel locomotive demonstrators from GM and just continued to run them and
No. You are still in error. The PA 1 was built 1946-50, with 2000 hp; the PA 2 1950-53 with 2250 hp.
EMD built E3s starting in 1938 with 2000 hp and continued with E 4s through E 7s until 1949 (one more in 1953), all with 2000 hp. E 8s were built 1949-1954, with 2250 hp.
Schlimm,
Ok - the ALCO “PA” and EMD “E” had roughly the same power and both increased this amount in 1950 - but let me explain one more time the high horsepower PA experience I saw and read about in TRAINS MAGAZINE.
The year was 1967 - I was traveling west with my parents in a 1966 Chrysler pulling a 26 foot Airstream trailer. We were traveling from Chicago to California following the Santa Fe main line.
Day after day I would see the Super Chief and El Captain pass by going both east and west pulled by General Motors EMD “F” units in A-B-B-A format set up for passenger use with steam generators and geared for 100 mph.
Santa Fe used only the EMD “F” units at that time - they had a huge fleet of them - and did not use the post WWII EMD “E” passenger units. The “F” produced 1,500 horsepower per cab unit.
Near Raton Pass I encountered the similar Santa Fe A-B-B-A lashup of Alco PA 2,250 horsepower units pulling mail trains with passenger coaches on mountain grades in the last year that Santa Fe used this type of ALCO PA power.
About this time the ATSF main line shut down - it was tied up by a freight train that burned off an axle on one of the cars derailing only one car of the consist.
So there we were about 10AM driving on the highway and we came upon both the Super Chief and El Capitain both east and westbound trainsets stopped and waiting for a clear track - right out in the “middle of no where” in the desert.
Well my dad pulled the Chrysler New Yorker and aluminum Airstre
Vs an F unit yes they are “high horsepower” but to the contemporary E unit they’re the same. Biggest difference is the size of traction motors used on the PA v the E which gave them superior tractive effort and the ability to use more of that power at lower speeds.
You’ve confused one for the other, not surprising viewing things thru rose colored glasses…
The last time that I drove past the plant on 55th Street, it was still in existence. Admittedly, it doesn’t assemble locomotives anymore (Caterpillar does not like to pay union wages and Muncie is in a “right-to-work” state), but the engine plant is still active.
Keep in mind that Alco was doing this with ONE engine while the E’s required two. From what I’ve heard, EMD was getting a bit nervous as a one engine locomotive was less expensive to build, but breathed a sigh of relief when the 244 engine proved to be a maintenance headache.
IIRC, the PA’s ran on 40 inch wheels, so they were equpped with 752 traction motors. The E’s had 36 inch wheels and had smaller traction motors, upshot was that a PA could outpull an E.
Perhaps the main reason hat EMD did so well with selling diesel locomotives was the development work done of the 567 courtesy the USN using that engine in many ships. Had Alco had a V-16 used by the USN versus the 539, they might have had a better opportunity to do development work on it. Think how EMD would have fared if they were still using the 201A.